Bunning says David Williams has 'uphill battle' and must get by likability issue

Retired U.S. Senator Jim Bunning said GOP candidate for governor David Williams “is hard to like” but he can get past that if he gets his conservative message to Kentucky voters.

“He is difficult to like. And that’s the first thing a politician finds out. And I said David, ‘I was hard to like and got elected almost every time,’” Bunning said in a wide-ranging interview last week. Bunning noted he only lost an election once — the 1983 governor’s race to Martha Layne Collins.

Williams has been trailing Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear in the polls by more than 20 points this summer. Independent candidate Gatewood Galbraith also has been gaining traction between the June cn|2 Poll and a SurveyUSA poll at the end of July.